HOMEMicrosoft - DAISY Consortium Collaboration, For release, Tuesday November 13, 2007 at 09:01 CET
In a new collaborative initiative, Microsoft and the DAISY Consortium will work together to develop an Open XML to DAISY XML Converter: "Save As DAISY XML". DTBook, the DAISY XML file which will be generated from the free downloadable plug-in for Microsoft Word, is the foundation of the DAISY/NISO Standard for reading and publishing navigable, multimedia content.
This joint project is a major breakthrough in the movement to provide feature-rich, structured information to the millions of people around the world who are unable to read print due to a visual, physical, perceptual, developmental, cognitive, or learning disability. It is an open source project and will be hosted on SourceForge.
Details are provided in the November Issue of the DAISY Consortium's newsletter, The DAISY Planet and in the Microsoft Press Release. Also of interest will be the Microsoft Press Pass Feature. This article focuses on the user experience and need for innovation and partnership to deliver increased accessibility support more broadly.
Markus Gylling, International Technical Development Coordinator for the DAISY Consortium, and Reed Shaffner, Microsoft Office Word Worldwide Product Manager, discussed the collaboration between Microsoft and the DAISY Consortium, and the benefits of DAISY during an interview. The video interview was done onsite at the Microsoft TechEd IT Forum held in Barcelona where "Save As DAISY XML" was announced. A direct link to the interview is also available, however, patience will be required as it takes several minutes to load.
